Learn new information, say, about Thomas Jefferson and d. N. A. And sally hemings, how you turn that ship around and say, you know what, guys, the father of our country, the author of our catechism. We hold these truths to be selfevident is the father of sallys children. Henry the way which we turn it around is by assuring Political Correctness and say this is the truth of the story. You may not like it. We are not going to be myth makers. We are not going to allied the bits of racial history. Michael you talk about some of the contrasting views within the black community. Its not a single narrative that can capture the complexity. Henry what every black person knows. Michael and Jackie Robinson supported nixon in 1960. Henry yeah. Michael and against paul robson. How much did he suffer for that . Henry well, lets go with the first point and then the suffering. I teach a course when i was an undergraduate at yale it was 19691973. So that was the height of the black arts movement, black power. Everybody remembers. Hes smiling. I had you have to cut back to 1969. You see my class pic. I had a twofoothigh afro. Cornells afro looked like a crew cut next to my afro. I had a it could come back if i wanted to. I had a closet full of and i changed like a computer code. The secret handshake. Stille sure you were black, right . Michael yeah. Henry people on campus because, where was i, in 1970, i was in new haven, connecticut, in calhoun college, a block away from the courthouse where bobby field was being tried. So it was full of black panthers and there was a drugstore on the way to the yale coops. It would where we got the books. The drugstore. Theould call it running gamut. The first person, you had to get by, was a black muslim. A guy with a white shirt trying to sell you mohameds speech. I got it. I got it. Then there would be a big brother with a beret on and a leather coat and panther speech. Where will you be when the revolution comes . And you go, i got that one. But there was so many people who would come to the black i was secretary of the b. S. A. The black Student Alliance at yale. And there were so many of these guys that would come and try to tell us how to be black. And unless you were black that way, you werent black. I saw a lot of damage in the black community. I saw a guy in love with this white girl. Up the street. He loved this girl to death. Should have gotten married. He wouldnt marry her because it would unblack him. He never got over. I decided if i ever were in a position of power, i was going to if i ever became a professor, as i said earlier, i didnt know i would be a professor because my mama raised two boys to be doctors. My mother is in heaven. There is a father, son and holy ghost. And white between them is a medical doctor. [laughter] henry its true. So i end up becoming a professor. I teach a very large and thank god popular course at harvard and its got a simple name. Introduction to africanamerican studies. I teach it with i did teach it with evelyn brooks higenbaum. Widow. Torian leons and now i teach it with larry. The whole course is about how black people have been arguing with each other since the 18th century about what it means to be black. And the reason i do that, the last line of my final lecture is i say, if you take away one thing in this class, just one that professor bobo and i have said, i want it to be this. There are 42 million africanamericans in this country, which means there are 42 million ways to be black. Never let a bully tell you how to be black. [applause] michael what do you think the black lives Matter Movement fits into this larger narrative that you just described . Henry well, i just wrote an article about it in the times couple weeks ago. And i tried to put it in historical context. I just got on my friends at the new yorker. One did a piece. Its all about how they hate each other and who created i wrote to i cant say which editor. And i go, this is like the battle royal scene in invisible man. Why not talk about the intellectual roots . What do they want to achieve intellectually. It would be nice if the New York Times did that. I believe and the editor brilliant editor at the times my editor said, we cant find this assertion anywhere. Where is the footnote . Im the footnote. Ok. Were going to run it. This is what i say. Precisely because of the classes divided within the africanamerican community, there is a tremendous amount of guilt. There is a tremendous amount of guilt on College Campuses about these kids are very successful and theyre going to be successful. And the guilt is about all the people in the hood who are left behind and unless there is something drastic some drastic changes, both structurally and behaviorally, then those group of people are going to be exactly where their parents were socioeconomically. What is the most likely predictor of your economic outcome . Your parents economic status. Right . So, if youre born in a household that is deeply deprived, chances are unless there are government intervention, philanthropic intervention, behavioral intervention, nothing is going to change. Black lives matter is because of this class divide. I think you have to be in the race to think about it and know. I say they were carrying out due charge and that is were not free until were all free. Not one of us is ken Jackie Robinson says, you say Jackie Robinson of all people, you have it made and he says, i dont have it made until every person in st. Augustine, florida, has it made. Michael do you guys think the rise of donald trump says anything about racial relations in this country today or does it say more about the ken yes. We are in a retrograde moment right now in which the dog whistles of race have been with us. We cant pretend that a phenomenon of the kind of racial innuendo whats happening right now is somehow new and were shocked this is happening. This has been going on for a long time. Ronald reagan opened his 1980 campaign in philadelphia, mississippi. He was saying winkwink in people. Le group of henry and thats where goodwin and others were murdered. Ken it was important for Ronald Reagan to go there to talk about states rights and he swore to that which was a wink but thats been going on since Richard Nixon said this would be good for to intervene and Barry Goldwater is were going to go hunting not where the ducks were. Where thomas in 1956 whose principal idea was to introduce the abolition of slavery. Thats an important thing to remember thats been advocated. So when you have a president ial candidate who takes a day to remember that he had already once repudiated david duke and took him a day to remember that he was going to do it now, that is the winkwink dog whistle that signals to our unreconstructed brethren. We like to believe in the better angels of our we like to believe were making progress. We like to believe we would all be that slave ship owner who, you know, gives it up and writes amazing grace. We like to believe in our better selves but in point of fact, a lot of us arent that and the old guilt, that Robert Penn Warren talked about, dont often transform into goodness but metastasize into darkness. Henry i agree. I agree. [applause] henry i, alone in my little coterie at harvard, when people were mocking donald trump, i turned to my friends and i said, you got to watch this guy. This guy is not going to go away, as he famously said, and he is speaking to a need and a deep set of fears within a large segment of the american community. And we were talking briefly at lunch, weve all been frightened. You know, you cant mock the people who are frightened. When youre frightened, does somebody mocks you and call you a scary cat, did that make you feel better . It made you feel worse. Its not an exact analogy but i think if i were an advisor to hillary clinton, who i support, a very good friend, i would say you have to study what the needs are, why these people are terrified, why are they so prone to antiblack feelings and antimuslim, islamaphobia, why they want the wall up, etc. , etc. , and what policies can be formulated that speak to their fears but from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum that donald trump is doing . Rather than exacerbate their fears, how do we assuage their fears and teach them how to reach across ethnic and racial and class lines, create new coalitions, and form bridges rather than to erect barriers . We cannot i told an audience in texas, i grew up in the hills of west virginia. Im as West Virginian as i am black. And in many ways im more West Virginian than i am black. We all have multiple identities. If you ask me how i got to this stage, i would say growing up, independent, rugged, in the hills of eastern west virginia, on the potomac river, shaped the person that i became. Get me here as being black. Thats just true. And i grew up overwhelming with an overwhelming percentage of white kids. Many of those people are supporting donald trump. And im still close to them and they would use the n word. I grew up with people that would say, skippy, if all niggers were like you we wouldnt have problems. And i would say, well, willie, youore crackers were like [indiscernible] these are my people. And i dont think that calling people trailer trash, i think calling people trailer trash is just as offensive as using the n word. And i think we cant just push a whole segment of frightened people down the sewer pipes of western history. We have to figure out how to bring them up, how to give them hope, how to create problems like bill clinton did. Hillary said last night that the the town hall that, look at the way Race Relations were much better when we had the lowest unemployment we had since the Great Depression under bill clintons economic policy. People start to look for scapegoats when theres not enough lasagna to feed. Thats when they look for scapegoats. We have to look at how to coin convince people there is not enough to feed the people and the these gay people and other people are not eating their share of lunch. Michael does it dissipate if trump loses and ken no, i think its already there. I have spent my professional life dealing in American History and you the 30 films i made, you know, maybe three dont deal with race in some way or another. Doesnt mean im not going to look for it. Its always there. We put black history as if its some politically correct agenda in february. Its every day. Its part of the american narrative. When Thomas Jefferson said all men were created equal. He didnt mean the 100 people he owned. That would ensure we would have a civil war, both symbolically and literally and everything that led up to the civil war, everything before it led up and everything since has been a consequence. You run into race all the time. I spent my life deflecting criticism from the haters, we would say, on the internet, but writing letters and colleagues would say, would you let go of this thing . Now that obama was elected, would you now shut up . Wait, wait, you watch. Remember the onion headline when he was inaugurated. Black man given worst job in the world. That was a sort of preview of what was actually going to happen. So that is going to disturb the molecules in a lot of people. I think its never going to go away until we begin to move and advance the conversation. And skip is absolutely right. If you can reach out to the people who are now so frightened and i believe a counternarrative has been drummed into their head for decades and decades and to be able to look up and see a black guy fly in air force one and look at the supposed hordes of people going over the no wall where there is a net loss of mexicans. More mexicans are leaving than coming over. Those that do come over are about 1 3 less likely to commit a crime. If you can educate people by having a conversation that does it, you dont call them as trailer trash. And dont refer to them as ignorant or whatever and say, you are supporting who doesnt have your selfinterest in mind and you have a lot of selfinterest in a lot of the folks, as skip says, that are perhaps eating your lasagna. That is not the case. In fact, you can break bread you have common cause with poor blacks and those stuck below the poverty line as skip said. You have nobody is eating your dinner. In fact, there are other people who are so selfinterested, theyve been eating your dinner for a long time and they have been convincing you to vote against your selfinterest for decades and decades and decades and maybe we can help through a little bit of counternarrative remind you whats really happening, this is after 72 straight months of job growth. This is after an Auto Industry that is now making a profit. This is after the end of capitalism didnt happen. This is after 20 million more people with health insurance, whether its flawed or not, means its human. Weve actually its not as bad. Henry because make no mistake, if ever working class white people and working class black people ever realize their that the greatest thing that could happen to them would be to break their common economic interest there would be a major social transformation. Ken evolution. It would be a whole new place. Henry these are michael has this a backlash that we have our first africanamerican president . Henry no, no. You lie. [laughter] michael is that henry that drove some people crazy. What happened is some people on the left started checking out books. One of my friends called it the end of the black literature. What . I called him. Are you crazy . Like somehow racism disappeared. This is the promised land. Barack and michelle are here. Its good. When the man yelled what was the congressmans named . Michael joe wilson. Henry what would Lyndon Johnson done to that brother . He would have disappeared. Ken his district would have been gerrymandered out. [laughter] henry and johnson would say, i hated to do it. And the other thing is, when the press conference, the republicans said well do everything we can to defeat this man ken from day one. Henry unprecedented. Unprecedented. Michael many people would argue this is just hardball politics, right . Im a republican, i dont want to see this democratic president have a second term. Ken so i asked shelby why the civil war came and he said, americans like to think of themselves as uncompromising people but were not. Our genius is compromised and when it broke down we murdered each other. 750,000 people died in the greatest war. And we are now in a political environment in which we celebrate the no compromise in which since the passage of the Affordable Care act, there has been almost partybyparty vote on every single thing. Lockstep. And that is the greatest threat to the United States is our unwillingness to bend and a lot of it has to do with, you know, basic, as you say, hardball politics. Its always been around. But those hardball politics when johnson passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights act, he had huge republican support. He was able to make that happen. Even though republicans, as a party, had essentially abandoned in a southern strategy reaching out to africanamericans. But he could individually say this is whats right. One of the great floor leaders in that is everett dirkson, who is a republican. Those things happened because people were willing to compromise and we dont do that anymore. So it is, of course, a political dynamic. But i think what has made it easier for people to do it, just as its easy in a mob to say fire or get him, we it takes the calmer voices. It takes the more complicated narrative a long time to gear up to the simple one in which you say the n word or you say you lie or you say i am not going to compromise because thats against my principles. Our genius is compromised. Henry there is another thing too. Lyndon johnson was one of the founders of the tea party at the white house asking them to participate. Lyndon johnson was knocking heads. And its a hard thing to talk about. Ive noticed many of my friends in the press are very reluctant to criticize barack obama because obama has taken so much criticism, undue criticism, right . But i think there is room for a critique of how the president has or hasnt used the hallmarks and tools and perks of office to affect compromise. I think hes worked very hard, but i think not a hes not Lyndon Johnson. You cant ask him to be that but maybe he could have done more. What do you think . Ken you and i talked about this more and i respectfully disagree because i think you gave it. On the very first day, nobody said it when Ronald Reagan, no democrat when Ronald Reagan was elected, you know, said my one job here is to make sure hes a failure. Which means your one job is to make sure that the United States is a failure. Let me also point out, not to keep beating to death Affordable Care act, but this is something that Teddy Roosevelt wanted, Woodrow Wilson wanted, harry truman wanted, Lyndon Johnson wanted, bill clinton wanted and he got it done. [applause] i would say is he stylistically not a southern person who knows how to get votes pocketed and knows how to get a drink . No, hes not. But i wont say, you know, hes without failure but i think its very important to put this in perspective. If you start off from not even day one your negative three months one. The day youre elected, youre not inaugurate and you have an entire party that says, nope. Michael how much is he constrained, do you think, by race . The idea that a black president could cajole, knock heads if need be, i know it has changed since the 1960s, but is it harder for a black president to do . Ken of course it is. He has to come here having to represent all of the people or try to represent all the people who didnt vote for him and a lot of those votes were people that didnt vote for him based on the color of his skin. Hes had to be incredible circumspect. I think i would have an easier time talking about it and do have an easier time talking about it. In a few instances hes been able to do it effectively. I thought it was very moving when Trayvon Martin was killed and he said, he could have been my son. He took enormous flack for that. Remember he went on a date in new york city with his wife. Now, if anybody else would have done that that would have been a moment. Pbs posted on Entertainment Weekly a little bite in the film where the president and first lady are speaking about how they needed each other in times of trouble just like jackie and rachel needed each other. Its a very wonderful and moving bite. Id urge you to go to that link and look it up. It wont ruin the film. Its one of the best moments in the film. Then scroll down and look at the comments about it. They are beyond the pale in terms of vitriol. This is a beautiful moment between a husband and a wife. Any person, white, black, purple green, its very funny and embarrassing and kind of loving all at the same time and you realize theres a relationship between jackie and rachel, you know. No rachel, no jackie and maybe no michelle and no president obama. But the vitriol just for the fact there is a black man whos president talking about marriage is so instructive. You cannot i mean, we all know. Weve all been singed by, aware of the unfettered internet which allowed the ungovern to be out there saying the worst possible thing anonymously. Michael anonymously. Ken it shows you what lies beneath the mob. If you are at all surprised what happens in our political process now, if you have been dedicated to no compromise, you can see this in the way thats called trolling that takes place. This is beyond the pale. You couldnt imagine if we had looked ahead if we were five years ago and looked ahead to the kind of stuff going on. This sounds like stuff you read in the 1880s about why soandso was lynched, right . This is not a modern, progressive republic that is the leader of the free world. Henry at Ferris State University there was a jim crow museum. I thought our documentary i guess it was two years ago when we filmed that. And already there was not a wink but this is a jim crow museum. These are all of the negative sambo images. They already had a huge collection of the most demeaning i mean, demeaning even images of barack obama. So youre absolutely right. But, you know, ken, when i was growing up there were no excuses. We expected white people to be racist. I think that barack obama was shocked, just like you were, unlike i was, at the degree of racism. I think a little bit, maybe he let his guard down. I think maybe he believed the narrative that a new racial a day of racial harmony had come. I think they were caught offguard. I dont think that they i think i dont think they had anticipated the depth of american racism or and how much had not changed because a black man had been elected to president of the United States. Michael let me ask you this, skip. Henry thats barbershop talk. [laughter] michael when you were arrested at cambridge, did you know immediately when he answered that question this was going to be a big deal . Because it sounded to me like it was a very obvious point he made but did you see it immediately . Henry well, you know, my phones started ringing off the hook. I dont think you could use that metaphor anymore. Did your phone ring off the hook . [laughter] ken vibrated out of your pocket. Henry barack obama said it was stupid you got arrested. Yeah. No kidding. Me . Would anybody arrest but immediately he was attacked for doing it. So i knew he was going to have to pull back so i didnt know what he was going to do. Michael i got you. Henry so the idea of the you know, having a beer came up. And he asked my opinion about that and he talked to the policeman before he talked to me and i said, i think its a great idea. At that point, all i wanted was for heres what happened. We were making finding your roots, and my girlfriend and i flew out to l. A. On a friday. And we were at this hotel for the weekend. And, you know, people we were sitting around the swimming pool. Its very traumatic to be arrested. It kind of flipped me out. I was filming eva longoria on sunday at her house. And so i noticed there was a little bit of tension around the swimming pool. Just a little bit. The people kind of do a double take. Maybe im just im black. Im paranoid. Right . Comes with the our d. N. A. So sunday we went up and we filmed Eva Longorias fabulous interview and she was very moved. She said, i want to take you to dinner at my restaurant. I said ok. So we went to her restaurant. We had this great meal. And right at the door. I said ok. I am going to quincy jones house. Opened that door, 10,000 photographers. And light bulbs. I had never experienced that before. We had to jump in the car. Run away. We had to find escape routes to the hotel and all that. That continued until the day after the beer all i wanted was for all of that to go away and for my life to be returned. Death threats, hate mail. My secretary, shes retired now. Shes italian, married to an irish high school sweetheart. I call that a Roman Catholic interracial marriage. [laughter] henry and she loved me, she is like my mother and sister rolled into one. She said she had no idea. Even being my secretary i chair black studies at harvard. She said, i never knew the depth of antiblack racism in this country because she was taking the phone calls and she was opening the mail. So i was surprised at how organized hate could be. Because i never experienced it before. You dont just get anonymous letters. These are all cranked out of machines and calling campaigns. I dont know where they move to. I dont know who generates it, but its a coordinated terrible, terrible, nasty thing. Bill clinton called me and as i said, i have a much closer relationship with the clintons than with the obamas. He said, why dont you have a beer this is funny. Why dont you have a beer with the cop . I said, mr. President . The other president said, im going to have a beer with the cop. I was like, didnt you get the message . Did you watch cnn . And he said, no, no. Not that. He said, call the guy and meet in your favorite public. I thought, wow. We did it we met at the river gods cafe. And what he told me moved me so much. He said, all i want he calls me professor. He said, professor, all i wanted was to go home to my wife at the end of the day. And he thought there was another guy, black, upstairs, and we were in the kitchen and that guy was going to come down and blow him away. When he told me that, it brought tears to my eyes because i understand fear. After that weve become really good friends. I see him all the time. [applause] thank you, gentlemen. I think this has been the best discussion of race in 54 years since Martin Luther king held this stage. [applause] before michael asked the last question, well try to get one more in if we can. I have a few announcements. The National Press club is the number one leading organization for journalists and we fight for a free press worldwide. For more information about the club, please go to to our website. Pleasedour club will be to welcome home the washington Journal Press journalist imprisoned unjustly. Unjustly in a run for 545 days. He will discuss his detain men and the need for cubans to more freely access information. Tomorrow the press club will host the fifth annual washington, d. C. Government summit. Then we will host the naacp president cornell brooks to discuss criminal Justice Reform in the president ial election. On march 24, the irs commissioner will be here to remind you to file your tax returns. I would like to present our guests with the National Press club mugs. [applause] thank you. This is great. Michael, i will handed to you for the last question. Are we on the cusp of a National CivilRights Movement . Michael yes. Fdr was armed with the christian faith, history is a rising road and the american catechism says rings are going to get at her. As potentially naive as it may be, it was all right for the president to conceive it because the only way youre going to change the world is to conceive it and move into it. I think it is possible for these retrograde tendencies to be quelled. Are born of fear and anxiety, that someone is eating off your plate. Turn downat if we can the rhetoric, stop panning the flames, we have the opportunity to move forward and not what it seems to be right now, backwards. I think history makes you optimistic, but it can be the opposite. I agree. Verge of aare on the major transformation in this country and it will be a what has been historically perceived as race will come to be understood as having been all along a metaphor for class and economic difference. , it will happens, boom be like turning a light switch on and that will be the most fundamental transformation in terms of the history of the civil rights protest in the United States of america. [applause] another round of applause for our speakers and your our moderator, michael fletcher. Thank you very much gentlemen. [indistinct chatter] [no audio] announcer cspans washington journal, live every day with issues that impact you. Coming up monday morning, the reporter for rollcall will join us to talk about the impact of the president ial election on the Congressional Elections and the agenda for congress. Then, president and ceo of the Leadership Conference for civil rights and the executive director of the Freedom Works foundation will join us to for thethe nomination District Circuit Court of appeals for the vacant seat on and theeme Court History of a voting on a president ial pick for the supreme court. And the executive director of us tompaign will join discuss his efforts to bring greater attention to poverty and how it can help fight terrorism on the international stage. Be sure to watch washington journal on cspan. Join the discussion. On the i tune into it weekend, usually it is author sharing their new releases. Watching the nonfiction authors on book tv is the best television. They can have a deeper conversation into delve into their subject. Weekends, they bring you author after after after author. Fascinating people. Love tv. Lawmakers raised therity concerns about the subprogram with a panel that the Inspector General. They checked on the background process and the testing of refugees seeking asylum in the United States. This is one hour and 45 minutes. Good morning. This hearing will come to order. I want to thank the witnesses for your time and testimony. And appearing here before us today. We have representatives from the state department, the u. S. Citizen immigration services, u. S. Immigrations customs enforcement. You will be hearing those acronyms. A lot of acronyms in this business. Mr. John ross, the Inspector General for the u. S. Department of human security. The hearing is about the security every u. S. Visa systems and programs. The potential vulnerabilities came to light in the publics awareness with 9 11. The fact that so many of the terrorists that killed so Many Americans were here on student these is. We understood the fact of visa overstays. Back then we obviously had the state department involved in granting and applications, or acceptance of granting the visa is. We also had immigration naturalization services. You basically had one agency. After 9 11, we kind of took that apart and set up the department of Homeland Security. Now we have different agencies. I think it is a legitimate question to ask, are these agencies working together . Do we have a shared purpose . A shared goal, shared mission to keep the nation safe. Allow for travel, allow for commerce. But at the heart of it, making sure we can do everything in an imperfect world to keep our nation safe and secure. That is my primary question and the main purpose of this hearing. Are we doing all we can to screen and that these applicants before they entered the country . I would ask my written remarks be in the record with consents. It is been kindly granted. I will turn it over to senator carper. Mr. Carper thank you for the hearing. Thank you for holding the hearing. Thank you for joining us. The three folks who are sitting in front of us are those who came to be confirmed for the hearings a year ago. We appreciate very much your service. But this hearing is the third in a series we bow to explore whether we are doing enough with u. S. Concerns that terrorists will infiltrate our country. We learned the u. S. Refugee resettlement process involved extensive security screening. Syrian refugees undergo multiple rounds of screening over an average of 1824 months including interviews and Counter Terrorism officials trained in spotting fraud. Trained in spotting deception. The committee our Visa Waiver Program which allows travel to the United States without a visa. Once it became clear that the paris terrorist held passports who enjoyed visa waiver privileges, this could be a possible Security Threat understandably. These a waiver travelers seeking to come to the u. S. Endured nearly the same level of security vetting is all other travelers. We also learned that when it comes to security nothing is being waived. The name of the program incorrectly suggests that. Countries must share intelligence with the u. S. They must open up their counterterrorism and Aviation Security systems to our inspectors and abide by our standards for aviation and passport security. As a result, the Visa Waiver Program has now become a key counterterrorism tool. And so what started off as a travel Facilitation Program and having enormous advantages to us in terms of protecting our security. Today we are going to continue looking at our screening systems for foreigners coming into the country and examine the depth of security for all forms of visas whether they be for students, tourists, people in business or those seeking to make american their permanent home. It is a daunting undertaking. It involves multiple government entities. The state department, department of Homeland Security and others that are not represented here today. Since the 9 11 attacks there have been notable changes to strengthen our visa security including recent adjustments made following the attacks in paris and san bernardino. Amid isisgrowing presence they are looking for ways to expand social media to screen travelers seeking to enter the u. S. I look forward to hearing about more of these efforts. We need to know if this program is adding Real Security and if so how to expand its reach. And with all of our recent hearings i expect we will find elements that we could improve upon today, understanding we could never eliminate our risks. We should not turn our backs on the benefits of trade, travel and immigration. Yet, as we continuously improve the security of immigration we must keep our eye on that even more pressing threat of terrorism. Probably due to strengthen our borders, groups no they may bypass our multiple layers of Homeland Security by using online propaganda to recruit people already inside of our borders, may be born here to carry out attacks in the u. S. Isis has twisted propaganda to carry out violence to combat long arm terrorist is the home land. We look forward to our continued work on this committee in combating homeland homegrown terrorism and sleeping security of immigration systems. Hope we can use the hearing to find commonsense sense improvements. Thank you for being here. We look forward to this conversation. Mr. Johnson thank you senator carper. Mr. Tester i appreciate the flexibility. The Visa Waiver Program are as the Ranking Member pointed out, are important programs for our economy but also of concern. In your Opening Statements if you could address the security of the programs you have, if you need additional tools that you dont have that would require this committee to take action, into the third thing is manpower. Do you have the manpower to carry out the job to make sure our country is not a threat with the visa program we have now. If you can do that you can answer all of my questions. Thank you. Mr. Carper that was under a minute. It is a tradition of our committee to swear and witness. So, if you will all rise and raise your right hand. Do you swear the testimony will get before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . I do. Please be seated. Our first witness is mr. David donoghue, Principal Deputy for the Council Affairs of youth at the u. S. Department of state. He has served as the assistant secretary of state for Visa Services and has coordinated for Interagency Provincial Affairs in afghanistan. At the embassy in kabul, afghanistan. Secretary donoghue. Mr. Donahue good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to testify today on the topic of u. S. Visa program security. The Department Agencies throughout the federal government take our commitment to protect american borders and citizens seriously. And, we constantly analyze and update our clearance procedures. Statement, which i request be put into the record, describes the rigorous screening regimen that applies to all of these categories. Let me begin by saying the visa program is layered, focus on National Security. Beginning with the petition to uscis come my colleagues here or a visa application submitted directly to a consulate abroad. During the interview, prior to travel, upon arrival in the United States and while the traveler is in the u. S. Are communities working together to protect our borders. The vast majority of these applicants and all immigrants and fiancee visa applicants are interviewed. Each officer completes extensive training which has a strong emphasis on border security, fraud prevention, interagency coordination and intervening interviewing techniques. Recent Regent Advisors bring additional antiterrorism expertise to the visa process. All visa applicant data is vetted against databases and including terrorist identity databases that contain millions of records of individuals found in eligible for visas. We collect 10 fingerprint scans from nearly all these applicants and screen them against dhs and other databases. All visa applicants are screened against photos against photos of known and suspect did terrorists and priority visa applicants. When interviewed raises concerns, or the inner agency screening process shows potentially disqualifying derogatory information the consular officers suspends processing and submits a request for a washingtonbased interagency security advisor opinion review. Conducted by federal Law Enforcement, intelligence intelligence agencies, and others. The department of Homeland Securitys Patriot Program and Visa Security Program managed by our uscis colleagues provide additional protections in certain overseas posts. Immigrations, coasters and special agents assigned to high threat locations provide onsite vending of these applications and other Law Enforcement support and training to our officers. Security reviews do not stop when the visa is issued. The department and Partner Agencies continuously match new threat information with our record of existing visas and we use our authority to revoke visas. We refuse more than one million applications a year. Since 2001 the department has revoked more than 122,000 visas based on information that surfaced after issuance of the visas. This includes nearly 10,000 revoked forces becton links to terrorism, again, based on information that surfaced after issuance. Note that this is shared across the inner agency in near real time. I notice you wanted to talk about our view of the security of the vw p program. While that is managed by the department of Homeland Security, we believe it does enhance our National Security, and allows us to focus on those places to have the staffing and resources in in places where we need to look deeply into the threat from travelers. It also provides, as was mentioned, these cooperative agreements with the nations sending these travelers to the United States, we have better access and understanding of the threats it they are seeing and they are sharing with us and we are sharing with them. While it it is not part of the program, we have a very close relationship with canada showing information across the border to have a strong outer border for the United States. Mr. Chairman, the department of state has no higher priority than the safety of our fellow citizens and the security of the traveling public. Every visa decision is a National Security decision. We appreciate the support congress has given us as we work to strengthen our defenses. I encourage you when you are traveling overseas to visit our sections to see the work that our officers are doing around the world. I look forward to your questions. Sen. Johnson thank you secretary donahue. Our next witnesses mr. Rodriguez. Prior to this position he has served as the director of the office for civil rights, department of justice. Director rodriguez. Mr. Rodriguez good morning. This is my second time before this committee to talk about this subject matter and the six time i have testified for some Congressional Committee in this fiscal year on this subject matter. I should hasten to say that this committee has become one of my favorites, particularly because the level of discourse has always been a civil and and intelligent one. Not that the questions are easy. The questions are hard once we need to be able to answer for the benefit of the mecca and people. I do appreciate the tone you have set here. I believe that a healthy and robust immigration and travel system is critical to our economy, critical to the stability of families and critical to the successful conduct of our Foreign Policy and National Security. That to the most fundamental responsibility of government is to protect the Public Safety. I have spent a fair part of my career working at the local level and have learned that every time we issue a drivers license, we need to make sure we are not issuing that license to someone who may become a drunk driver. Every time we issue a building permission we have to make sure it may not be for a building that a collapse. And every time we issue immigration benefits we need to do everything we can to ensure security of our country and that those who mean us harm who who become threats to Public Safety do not exploit immigration system. In particular, uscis bears responsibility for screening refugees who will seek admission to the United States. Since september 11 we have admitted nearly 790,000 refugees. I would hasten to add 120,000 of those have come from iraq. In that time not a single admitted refugee has actually engaged in an act of terrorist violence against the United States. There have been a number of relatively small terrorists plots or attempts to affiliate with terrorist organizations that have been successfully disrupted by United StatesLaw Enforcement. The reasons why we have been successful is the screening process that exists to screen those who were coming to the United States. It is a multilayered process involving a multitude of cabinet agencies, Law Enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies and involves intensive interviews conducted by several agencies, in particular by my officers who are intensively trained and briefed to do the work that they do. Nonetheless, recognizing evolving threats, those posed by lone wolves inspired by terrorist organizations, we continue to look for opportunities to intensify and strengthen the quality of the work we do. One area of focus has been our review of social media, particularly those seeking admission as refugees in order to determine whether there is any derogatory information contained therein. We have undertaken several pilots to identify automated tools and processes which will further enable us to do this work. But we have not waited for the conclusion of those pilots to begin actively using that as part of our work. And in those cases where individuals have been flagged as of a concern among certain refugees streams we have in already been analyzing social media to determine whether such information exists. We will continue to add capacity in this area. We will continue to strengthen our ability to do that and we will add more volume based on our assessment and Intelligence Community partners assessment of where the highest levels of risk are. To respond to your question, senator tester, we are working to get to the point where we actually can answer your question. Where we can identify the resources and personnel we need. Needless to say our agency is a fee funded agency. So, the majority of work is funded by our fee paying customers. But a lot of that is done in concert with various taxbased partners in Law Enforcement and we will look forward to a further conversation should we identify needs as we develop these processes. Finally i look forward to addressing concerns raised in the ig report. I would note a couple of particular findings. One was that 93 of our customers in the early going of a replacementd, green card launch reported they were satisfied with the service we provided. I would note the ig recognizes after july 2015 the conclusion of the audit window, we undertook a number of improvements. And what i would ask for the ig to come back and to engage with this community, this committee about those improvements so we can give you the confidence that in fact our automation process is successful and is poised for greater success in the future. Thank you for having me here today. Mr. Johnson thank you mr. Rodriguez. Is the director of u. S. Immigration and emigration enforcement at the u. S. Department of Homeland Security. She previously served as United States attorney for the Northern District of texas. Ms. Saldana good morning. Senator tester, im having nightmares from seeing that buffalo or bison head in your office . But im sure i will get over it. ,[laughter] hon. Sarah saldana i will say in all seriousness i appreciate opportunity to talk about this subject. I agree with my colleagues with respect to the importance of this issue and these issues, and appreciate what we hear from the Inspector General with respect to our programs and improvements recommended and to your questions and suggested with respect with how we can do our jobs better. As you know, congress authorized our role in this process in 2002 where we were told to assign agents and diplomatic post to review these is security the says security activities security activities and to provide training and other assistance to our state department colleagues. This effort is led by the investigative side of immigration and customs enforcement. With the involvement of our enforcement and removal operations folks. It has accomplished the sp. We have analysts and agents working at 26, issuing posts in 20 countries to identify terrorist criminals and other individuals who are ineligible for visas prior to their travel or application for admission to the United States. This fits in with the larger responsibility to disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations. And but, in the visa security context we are trying to stop threats, deter threats before they reach our nations borders. As a result, for which we are very thankful, ice was able to expand the Sp Operations to six new issuing posts. The largest expansion in the programs history. We are looking forward to adding posts before the end of the fiscal year. As my colleagues have said the process begins and ends obviously with the department of state, with the involvement of citizenship immigration service, and prisons the first opportunity to assess whether potential visitor emigrant poses a threat to our country. That is where ice comes in. Our Law Enforcement folks. Ice actions complement the office of screening applicant interviews and reviews of applications and supporting documentation. Patriots, against our vast holdings. All the information we have from the not only d. H. S. Agencies but the Intelligence Community as well. This step occurs before the applicant is even interviewed for the first time. Patriot takes a riskbased approach and uses sources from ice and the state department to identify potential National Security and Public Safety threats. Where the difference is for most of the government screening effort is that it leverages the fact that we have agents posted at those visa screening sights, at the visa sights that the state department has. And those agents are able to investigate these information that comes up in the applications actually supplement department of states interviews of those applicants and identify previous unknown threats. So we are happy to have those people on sight in 20 different countries. Our agents reviewed over 2 million applications and we determined they identified them of 64,000. That is flag that goes up that perhaps something is indicating to the agent who is very well trained and versed in intelligence and criminal activity and other derogatory information. After indepth vetting, the next step, we determined the existence of a little over 7,000 of 23,000 cases in which we saw derogatory investigation to have some nexus to terrorism, resulting in our recommendation to refuse visas to approximately 8,600. Approximately 850 data base records were created or enhanced that is the other compli cament to this mission and that is the intelligence gathering that were able to do through our indepth vetting and screening. While im extremely proud of what our ice personnel do to visa applicants on the front side, we initiate action against overstate violators that senator johnson mentioned earlier. This helps to derp if an individual has overstayed or departed the u. S. In the last two years ice has dedicated 650,000 special agent hours, each of those two years to overstay enforcement. Ice prioritizes immigrant overstate cases through risk base analysis through our unter terrorism and criminal ctceu. Tion unit, the we refer them to others on the e. R. O. Side if were unable to do anything for them on the investigative side. We are very proud to include both sides of our house on this effort. We actually as a side note have increased the investigative responsibilities of our e. R. O. Folks and i look forward to working with this committee to discuss some pay reform with respect to our entire ice workforce and i stand ready to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, director saldana. Inspector general john roth. He served as the director of investigations of the food and drug administration. Tepad a 24year in